YESS Breakfast & Emo Trolls

Breann and I at the breakfast.

We had a hectic week last week, but it sure was a great one! I am so proud of the amazing YESS Road to Success annual breakfast that we hosted last week. We had a wonderful turnout, and hearing from both middle and high school YESS students was so powerful.

Breann, Aileen, and Selene deliver their speech to over 150 guests!

I am particularly proud of the three speakers we had from Shaw Heights--Breann, Aileen, and Selene--and the fantastic speech they delivered. These young ladies worked for weeks on their speech, staying after school-- even during testing weeks--to ensure they were properly prepared. Breann's father, Nick McCoy, was kind enough to also share a few words at the breakfast. His speech moved me to tears (and I have a feeling I was not the only one!)

Special thanks to Dr. Diane Basset for all of her help prepping our Shaw speakers.

Aileen and I at the breakfast.

Last week, we also began our discussion on Emo Trolls-- those little emotional monsters we can sometimes morph into when we are very angry and/or stressed. Our scholars loved learning about the Emo Trolls, and many were having "ah-ha!" moments in assessing either their own behavior or the behaviors of their close family members and friends.

We ended our week with a dance celebrating the end of state testing. Next week, we will continue talking more about Emo Trolls!

Hanging out with Sergio at the dance!

Some of our sweet mentee girls! 

Mentor Presentation and Hot & Cool Buttons

We are finished with testing! It has been a long three weeks, and we are excited to return to our normal routines.

4th hour during our pendulum activity for "hot" buttons.

Last week, we began discussing "hot" buttons by identifying triggering situations. This is empowering as the first step to change is awareness, and building awareness around one's hot buttons is a crucial step in emotional intelligence. We did a couple of exercises and completed a packet that guided us through the process of identifying major hot buttons. Then, we used the information to acknowledge our need for action. It was great to see our scholars building awareness. 

Leslie works hard on the title for our display board.

We have also been hard at work preparing for the end of year celebration (on May 7th at Ranum!) and for the annual YESS breakfast. I am very proud of the work our speakers have but into their speeches, and I am also very proud of the beautiful display board my student assistants helped me put together!

Our mentors have been presenting their leadership projects and have been doing a wonderful job (check out the pictures!).

We are looking forward to talking about Emo Trolls next week. Stay tuned! 

Jennifer presents her project on Barack Obama.

Jayleen presents her project on Emma Gonzalez. 

YESS T-shirts & Testing (Continued)

7th hour t-shirt celebration!

The amazing shirts, hand drawn by Celest Morales.

We are working our way through testing, and have reached the end of ELA and Math! Next week, our 8th graders will complete testing for science, which will mark the official end of state testing! Our scholars are working hard, and have done a great job these past two weeks. 

Having fun on a Friday after testing. 

Our mentors have been working on independent research projects. This Monday, they will present on the leader they picked by presenting a Google slide power point. Our mentees have done a wonderful job on their "13 Reasons Why Not" project.

We are so excited to announce we received our amazing YESS t-shirts last week! One of our mentors--7th grader Celest Morales--had the winning design. Everyone is thrilled by the way the shirts turned out, and it has been great to see them around the building. Big thanks to all of those who helped make this possible for our scholars. 

Next week, we will resume lessons. Stay tuned for more. 

The Belief Cycle & CMAS Testing

We began CMAS testing this past week at Shaw, and so we have slowed down our pace a bit in the YESS classroom to accommodate for the schedule. We did manage to fit in one more full lesson on Tuesday as we continued our discussions on beliefs by studying a flow chart that explains how limiting beliefs become self-full-filling prophecies (see picture).

The Belief Cycle

Changing limiting beliefs into empowering beliefs!

We worked on identifying limiting beliefs and the consequential impact such beliefs have on our lives by studying events or circumstances that tend to trigger limiting beliefs. It was an emotional lesson as it can be quite uncomfortable to analyze such negative thoughts. It was, however, empowering when we were then able to take the limiting belief and turn it around so that became an empowering belief. 

Identifying limiting beliefs.

Once testing began, we spent our afternoons working on a more uplifting project called "13 Reasons Why NOT." This short art project asked each mentor and mentee to come up with 13 reasons why they are happy to be on this Earth. We used a circle map to brainstorm our ideas, which we then illustrated. Special shout out to Mrs. Sankovich at Scott Carpenter for the project idea!

A mentee's brainstorm for "13 Reasons Why NOT"

Next week we will continue testing, and our mentors will be finalizing their leadership projects, which is very exciting!

Beliefs Questionnaire & Stress Survey

Welcome back! We are ready to get back to work following our week-long spring break.

Quan's Beliefs Questionnaire from 6th hour.

Prior to the break, we continued our discussions on belief systems and the ways our beliefs influence our lives. We completed a questionnaire that helped us explore the various beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world around us (see picture for details). We used this information to play "Find Someone Who," a Kagan structure that had our scholars moving around the classroom. Each had to find five other individuals (who did not sit at his or her table!) with whom they shared specific beliefs (and correlating scores).

Ericka's questionnaire from 4th hour. 

It was interesting to see friends who previously assumed they held the same beliefs realize just how much they differed! Likewise, it was great to see new connections being made as our scholars realized who did share their exact beliefs.

We also took some time to evaluate stress and the way we deal-- or don't deal-- with stress. This was great information to have as we are about to start PARCC and CMAS testing.

We look forward to getting back into the swing of things-- stay tuned for more!

Beliefs Survey & Questionnaire

We continued our discussions about beliefs last week by completing a survey and a questionnaire. These tools were designed to help our YESS scholars better understand beliefs they harbor in addition to understanding how others may perceive him or her.

To complete the survey, each scholar had to ask his or her table for feedback. For instance, one of the questions asked, "What do you think are my greatest strengths?" Another question asked, "What are some areas for improvement?" I was particularly proud of the way our scholars handled this question. There was honesty, but also empathy as mentors and mentees thought carefully about how to phrase their feedback. Many were surprised by some of the beliefs they heard others hold true for them, such as, "you are really great at helping me with my math work," or, "you are really confident and calm."

5th hour acts out the survey as though they are filming each interviewee!

Though the survey took some time to complete, it was very helpful at highlight the different belief systems in our classroom. After the survey, we moved on to a questionnaire. Each scholar had to note how much they felt the statement represented their behavior and/or feelings on a scale of 1-4 (1 indicating little if any connection, 4 indicating a major connection). One example of a statement reads: To fail is terrible. Another reads: I feel personally threatened when criticized.

Nate works with his mentees to complete the survey.

7th hour works hard to complete the questionnaire.

At the end of the questionnaire, our scholars had to add up certain questions to see which of the four main categories (or more!) they fell under: feeling "powerless" or like "I can't do much about my life"; feeling as though "my worth and security are dependent on being loved"; feeling like "my worth and security depend on the approval of others"; feeling as if "my worth is dependent on my performance or achievements"; feeling as if "I trust or get too close, I'll lose control"; or feeling like "I have to be perfect" or "it is not OK to make mistakes."

So many scholars found this questionnaire enlightening. As one mentee put it, "This is totally me! I mean, I knew it, but not really. Like, it was in the back of my head but now I am aware, Miss!"

5th hour enjoys some fresh air while completing their surveys!

We also had a very special visit by Breanne, who designed our YESS lessons and curriculum. It was such a pleasure to host her in our classroom!

We will continue to explore belief systems more in the weeks to come!

Some great feedback from a mentee on a Weekly Reflection Log. "The most interesting was that I never actually thought about some of these things [in relation to our talk about belief systems]."

Belief Systems

7th hour explores belief systems with a game of musical chairs!

This past week in YESS we began discussing belief systems. We have noted that the brain is a very sensitive organ that is heavily influenced by the way we think. Our scholars have a strong understanding of the power of positive thought thanks to all of our work around "stinking-thinking" and our ritual of "Today I Choose." We are now trying to work out why, perhaps, we have certain beliefs about ourselves--some of which may really stink!

Andrew contemplates his word during 4th hour.

We began by playing a version of musical chairs. Each scholar had a chair (we were not trying to "get" any one out!) and a T-chart to fill out as we worked through this exercise. On each chair there was one note card that was facing down; whenever the music stopped, each scholar had to pick up the card on the chair in front of him or her. They then had to record the word on their chart and describe one immediate connection they had to that word--whether it was positive, negative, or neutral.

Afterward, we wrote a reflection about the word each scholar liked "best," or had the most positive connotation to, and the word they liked the "least," or the word with which they experienced the most negative connotation.

It was interesting to see scholars in the same class periods having polar opposite reactions to the same words. For instance, the word "math" made one student happy because she is gifted and talented, while another just wrote "can't do" next to the word (see the pictures for more examples!).

An example of our worksheet-- these two ladies reacted very differently to the word "school." 

An example of our worksheet-- these two ladies reacted very differently to the word "school."

Understanding our belief systems is a key part of emotional intelligence, and will we be discussing belief systems for the next two weeks. Stay tuned for more!